Southen CA Saltwater

Coronado Island spring fling continues

BY MERIT McCREA/WON Staff WriterPublished: Jun 13, 2018

First local yellowfin of the season landed and a 185 U.S. waters BFT!

SAN DIEGO — The ebb and flow of the Coronado yellowtail snap continued this past week as scores reached limits levels and crested the century mark. It was Thursday when the Liberty posted yellowtail limits at the islands for 16 anglers.

The following day 41 showed up to go, passports in hand. Their final tally was 137 with 20 keeper calico in for good measure.

ELECTRA JOLENE'S YELLOWFIN tuna, the first of the season, aboard the Pacific Voyager. With her is 2nd Capt. Charlie L'Esperance.

At Seaforth Sportfishing the San Diego was on the island run and whacked 'em hard, with 124 forks Friday and 169 Saturday. The word was fly-lined sardine and surface iron action.

Monday the Pacific Voyager rolled in from a 2-dayer with the season's first known local yellowfin tuna in the box. The 16 aboard Electra galley operator Jolene Thompson's private charter iced 44 bluefin tuna.

It was Jolene herself who tagged her number 16 on the season's first yellowfin tuna, a 16 pounder. She said, "Hey Merit, look what I caught on my 2-day charter on the Pacific Voyager! First fish on the boat at 155 miles below as we were on our first stop for BFT’s! We couldn’t believe it! We started fishing at 3:30 p.m. The exotic was 16 pounds, caught on 25-pound test Irozline XXX, in 65.5 degree water! We also caught 44 bluefin tuna, 20 to 40 pounds! We only fished for 4.5 hours!"

ON THE PLUG aboard the Liberty this last week. The Coronado yellow bite ripped at times, with fish eating surface iron and fly-lined sardines.

With the biting blues all the way down outside of San Martine, there were plenty much closer to home tantalizing anglers. The word of the week was "tonnage." In fact on the water the scuttle was spotter plane fish between the 43 and San Clemente Island in U.S. waters.

However, the bite this past week was again pick and scratch, but with free divers banging them and tonnage to be seen. But right at press time Capt. Paul Fischer, Outer Limits shot in the following, "We saw great sign of bluefin tuna just off SCI yesterday. We landed a 185 at sunset. It was a dual bachelor party for brothers Chris and Ryan Amburg. Chris landed the yellow at SCI and Ryan landed the bluefin.

Strangely, while coastal waters north of San Diego had calico hard on the chew, the local San Diego 1/2-day best bite remained rockfish.

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